


Inferno

by gr8escap



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Buried Alive, F/M, Gen, Not Really Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:18:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6444103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gr8escap/pseuds/gr8escap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky and Reader are faced with the worst possible consideration, could Steve Rogers possibly have survived?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inferno

Bucky stepped out of the flames and smoke with the deepest sorrow etched on his face, when he looked into y/n’s eyes his own flooded with tears that he wouldn’t permit to fall, not here. Not now.

“NO! Bucky NO… he can’t be gone!” y/n wept, “You got it wrong, Steve’s not gone!”

He pulled her into his arms and cradled her head in his left hand, as gentle as a lamb, as he swayed from his emotion and her weeping. The three of them had been inseparable since Bucky had returned to Brooklyn. He knew Steve loved her and he knew he would have to take care of her, it would be what Steve would have asked.

“I know you don’t want to believe it. I don’t either but there’s no way. We’ll search – we’ll find proof, but I want you to go home.”

“No. I won’t leave – we need to find him! We need to bring him home.” y/n looked up at Bucky with pleading eyes. “Please – we can’t leave him alone again. It wasn’t fair to you and it wasn’t fair to him the first time – please let me help you look for Steve.”

“Y/n” Bucky finally wept, “no matter how hard you look, you won’t find him. We’re looking for his body, sweetheart. You can’t help if you can’t say the words. It will just make everything worse.”

“You both survived before, why can’t I have hope now?” y/n wiped her eyes, only to have them seep moisture all over again.

“Sometimes hope is the enemy. You have to be realistic and if you can’t be, you’re going to be hurt.”

“Fine, you’re right,” y/n wept again, “you’re right, but I have to help search for his body. You can’t make me leave.”

“I know doll, come on then, we have to wait for the inferno to die down. We can’t join him in that hell. He would never forgive me if I let you come to harm.”

“Surely we can scope the perimeter? I can’t leave – I can’t sit around not doing anything.” The tears and sobs were still wracking y/n and it was tearing into Bucky all over again. If only he’d been a fraction of a minute sooner, if only Steve had been even two feet further from the epicenter. He knew he couldn’t refuse her this.

They walked the outer limits of the burning rubble, shooed out of the way by fire personnel more than once but never moving far enough away that the searing heat lost its intensity. Bucky’s face was red, y/n’s face was red and their bodies were saturated with soot and sweat as they walked the perimeter at least a dozen times. The building had collapsed entirely, there was no way.

The screaming sound that the changing temperatures and pressure of the building’s rubble was making caused y/n to shriek in anguish, “Bucky – what if he’s under there, what if that’s Steve screaming?!”

“If you don’t calm down we’re going to have to leave.” Bucky said softly, “Please, y/n don’t do this to yourself. It’s the concrete and metal, the expansion and contraction of materials in the heat.”

“Bucky!! Please check – please if he’s alive and suffering we’ll never forgive ourselves!”

“If I go in there I’ll die too. I don’t want you to see that. I’ll die for Steve a thousand times but I don’t want you to suffer any more than you have, than you are.”

“It won’t happen like that, I know. I have faith.”

Bucky scratched the back of his neck as he weighed his options; he stepped forward, throwing large pieces of burning rubble aside with his metal arm, plowing a path through the debris. He heard the sound that she must have tuned into and it was _not_ metal and concrete. He surged ahead, tearing through the wreckage with a madness he hadn’t experienced since shortly after breaking the programming of hydra.

He saw the shield and y/n running toward him out of his peripheral vision which told him she’d seen the glisten of vibranium too. He held out his right hand to stop her “Get back.” He ordered, gruffly as he flipped the searing shield over and grabbed the singed and scorching suit. He dragged Steve out along the path he’d cleared not looking up, not wanting to see y/n. He also avoided looking at Steve’s body – he didn’t want to see his corpse and if he was alive he didn’t want to see the charred flesh. Bile rose I his throat as he kept forging through the burning mess. Y/n rushed him as he cleared the perimeter and started pulling at Steve’s arm which had been flung over his face; she tore the helmet from his head, folding her fingers into his hair.

“Steve. Please – please Steve.” y/n cried, “please come back to us.”

Bucky knelt at his other side, weeping into Steve’s shoulder. “I tried.”

Steve felt like a truck had crushed him, and then dumped him into a volcano. He gasped, feeling like he was drowning in hot lava. His throat burned and the cough that wracked him brought boulders down on top of him. He opened his eyes to struggle free and felt the tickle of hair on his face and the boulders were muscle and flesh. “y/n” he rasped, recognizing a familiar scent mixed with ash and soot.

“Oh Steve! Thank god Steve!!” y/n wept over him.

He opened his eyes and saw his best friend bawling over him and his lover gazing at him as if he were a miracle.

“How long was I out this time?” he quipped, his voice still ravaged by searing smoke and the screaming he almost remembered doing.


End file.
